In this series we’ll take a fresh look at resources and how they are used. We’ll go beyond natural resources like air and water to look at how efficiency in raw materials can boost the bottom line and help the environment. We’ll also examine the circular economy and design for reuse — with an eye toward honoring those resources we do have.

While changes at home can’t solve the many environmental crises we face today, they can sure help. Through this series, we’ll explore how initiatives like curbside compost pick-up, rebates on compost bins, and efficient appliances can help families reduce their impact without breaking the bank.

Despite decades -- centuries even -- of global efforts, slavery can still be found not just on the high seas, but around the world and throughout various supply chains. Through this series on forced labor, sponsored by C&A Foundation, we’ll explore many different types of bonded and forced labor and highlight industries where this practice is alive and well today.

In this series we examine how companies should respond to national controversy like police violence and the BLM movement to best support employees and how can companies work to improve equality by increasing diversity in their ranks directly.

Compost is often considered a panacea for the United States’ tremendous food waste problem. Indeed, composting is a much better option than putting spoiled food in a garbage can destined for a landfill.

A start-up called re:char has a new take on an ancient idea that’s designed to enhance crop yields in the developing world by making biochar accessible and affordable.

Biochar is made by a process known as pyrolysis, which heats organic matter such as waste farm produce, without oxygen. Instead of releasing carbon dioxide into the air as the matter burns, the carbon is locked away in solid charcoal-like chunks.

In addition to increasing crop yields, subsistence farmers can supplement their income while trapping atmospheric carbon and enriching depleted soils. Biochar can also be used as cooking fuel instead of cutting down trees for firewood.

“It’s a really ancient concept,” says re:char‘s founder and CEO Jason Aramburu. In a recent FastCompany interview, he explained: “In the Amazon basin for over 3,000 years indigenous farmers have been making charcoal and burying it in the ground. They did this because it improved the soil’s ability to capture and retain nutrients, which led to increased crop yields. The soil is so fertile, that they call these sites terra preta, which means black earth in Portuguese. What the farmers didn’t know 3,000 years ago was that biochar was actually making a lasting impact on the soil. Today at the sites where they buried the biochar, it’s still in the ground. As a result of how fertile the land is, that biochar-rich land is worth about five times as much as the land without it.”

In Kenya re:char produces and sells a device called a rutuba kiln. “Rutuba” means soil fertility in Kiswahili. “The kiln costs us $25-30 to produce and we sell it to a farmer for less than the cost of two bags of fertilizer,” Aramburu says. “Most farmers in a year purchase 2-3 bags of fertilizer and that’s typically the largest single purchase that they make.”

The kilns are made from repurposed oil barrels, made in a “mobile factory,” actually a 20-foot cargo shipping container outfitted with advanced metal fabrication tools. Re:char brings the factory to the farmer.

Aramburu says it’s a tricky sell. In Kenya a “lot of these farmers have seen lots of Western ideas come and go.” But re:char has hooked up with an NGO in the region, which has helped sell the concept. The company has also developed test sites in the area that demonstrate how biochar works, and re:char is also setting up a test farm with several different test plots.

This is an idea that could and should catch fire, so to speak. Recently re:char received a Gates Foundation grant to test the conversion of human waste into biochar. And last year re:char received the 2011 Social Venture Network Innovation Award.

Biochar is a great fertilizer, at least part of the answer for carbon sequestration, and a renewable fuel. While there is no single answer in renewable and sustainable fuel, it is the only energy source that’s “carbon negative.” It’s also neat that old oil barrels are used as the kilns — there are plenty of those around.

One response

Guys like Jason will change the world, he and the many engineers without borders like Dr. “TLUD” Paul Anderson’s boots on the ground efforts have a massive cascade effect to the quality of life for subsistence farmers. Less fuel to haul, lung healthy wives & children and tranformatiom from a substance farmer to a peasant farmer by increased yields.

Sec. Clinton Makes a big Announcement with The Global Stove Initiative; State Dept. Release; 100 million clean-burning stoves in kitchens around the world.http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/…

Biochar Work in Nine Developing Countries:http://www.biochar-internation… Clean cook stoves are the philanthropic side of a burgeoning thermal conversion Biochar industry

Big Wig consortiums like Catchlight Energy LLC, a joint venture of Chevron Corp and Weyerhaeuser Co, with Kior , Honeywell has joined SynGest for the production of fossil fuel free ammonia & char from biomass, and AlipaJet for a tank ready fuel process from bio-oils.http://www.syngest.com/AliphaJ… BP has joined GE, Google Ventures, ConocoPhillips, and NRG Energy, in investing in Cool Planet BioFuels for fungible fuels + biocharhttp://coolplanetbiofuels.com/… All go to show that main stream corporations are showing much more than just interest in Biochar systems.

My best summation and overview for these carbon conservative pathways is this talk, to the EPA directors of north America. Titled; The Establishment of Soil Carbon as the Universal Measure of Sustainability The most cited soil scientist in the world, Dr. Rattan Lal at OSU, was impressed with this talk, commending me on conceptualizing & articulating the concept. Please find the text & links below. and read a full report on the June 22, Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) talk,http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/g…

Other large markets for Biochar applications, Not included in the CEC talk , are current Biochar heavy metal remediation work I instigated with DuPont & Oak Ridge National Laboratories for toxic mercury remediation, showing a 95% reduction of Hg moving up the food web, and the Japan Biochar Association’s work toward radionuclide remediation.